the morning after a car accident.

I’ve recently been reading “The Body Keeps the Score,” a book about how our body tells the tale of trauma we experience in our lives. This book is written for the average joe, like you and me, to understand what happens to our brains, our bodies, our nervous systems, when we experience trauma. Whether a series of events or just something that happens one time, trauma affects people in different ways, and can manifest differently in every person.

Now, I think God has a sense of humor or something, because as I’ve been making my way through this book, my husband and I were in a car accident. We were hit from behind, when a distracted driver slammed into us while we were fully stopped. Daniel is okay, praise God.

I hit my head pretty hard, though. I’ve had several concussions over the past several years, so any kind of impact can be really scary.

I stayed up the first night for a long time to make sure it was safe to sleep — we were pretty wound up from the accident anyways. but when I woke up the next day, my head was okay, but my sensory system wasn’t.

after my first major concussion I spent a lot of time in and out of therapies, specialists, and examinations. I went to chiropractors, muscular specialists, neurologists, acupuncturists, and the list goes on. After years and years of testing, I was diagnosed with a mix of post traumatic stress disorder and psychosomatic non-epileptic seizures.

basically, this means that I have a very difficult time processing and delineating between regular, day-to-day adrenaline, and emergency, something-is-wrong adrenaline.

a loud shout, a door slamming, or even a touch that I wasn’t expecting is enough to send my body into sensory overload, and I begin to have massive tremors throughout my body that bind up my muscles. they are exhausting, to say the least, not to mention, fairly obvious and embarrassing.

my initial diagnoses was years ago — and I’m really thankful for how I’ve been able to get them under control, for the most part.

until this car accident.

I described it to daniel — it’s as if my brain is so jarred, I’ve just stepped back into what it used to be like. all the progress I gained in years is gone in an instant.

diffused sunlight from the window is too bright — the window I love to sit in front of to read. the water from the jug in the fridge is too cold to touch or to even think about drinking. my husband’s voice, generally so comforting and reassuring, is too loud, too sharp, piercing through my temples. I can listen better when I have the covers over my head.

His presence, though, is a comfort to me, even though it’s hard for me to focus my eyes on his face. So I get as close as I can and just feel his body breathing next to me, focusing my mind and reminding myself that I am not stuck in my experiences and in these traumatic events in my past.

I am in the present. I am safe. I am relatively uninjured. I am going to be okay.

while this experience has been jarring, it isn’t anything new for me. I often have to reconcile with the fragility of my body. although this is a frequent practice for me, it rarely gets easier. It is difficult for me to accept my differences — that how I process emotions is different, how much stimulation I can handle is different, even how much energy I have to keep up on a walk or be in social situations for extended amounts of time.

even now — it’s getting harder to keep my eyes open, to focus on the computer screen. I’m going to quit this to read a book, but that will be hard, too.

God does not promise to spare us from hard things. In fact, he prepares us for them. They are a regular, daily part of living in this world. This is true whether or not you believe in God. But, I do believe that it is belief in Him that provides some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

I may not understand God’s ways, but he is not frivolous.

I may not like what He allows, but I know His faithfulness from year’s past, and that He will keep being faithful now.

I may grieve the loss of a fully-functional body in the here and now, but my hope is set in the future, where I have a new, heavenly body that will be perfect forever.

A couple of years ago I wrote something that was close to “let my broken body remind me of your broken body for me.” I can’t remember, but since I wrote it, I don’t think I can plagiarize myself since it hasn’t really been published anywhere.)

this is a hard practice, remembering.

it is even harder when your own brain gets in the way.

but believers are encouraged to remember, over and over again. this is how we continue to walk along the way of jesus, by remembering.

my broken body, when regarded rightly, is an altar to the Lord’s redemptive work. It is a tangible reminder that the healing he has done in my heart will one day be done to my body too — and just as I cannot do anything to fix my broken flesh, I cannot fix my broken heart. only Jesus can do that.

And he said that he will.

trauma or not, I know that God has seen me and God will continue to care for me, and one day, I will be with him.

one step at a time.

Jesus, fix my eyes.